He never lived so softly when alive,
nor after in death did he care to die,
just sleeping
with hands clasped upon the chest,
dreaming of the pain which
so condemned his life;
of soft humiliations fine
which he drank in multitude,
morning, night and noon,
and found pleasure in such numb abuse;
since he didn’t know what it was to be alive
with no internal thoughts to bear,
just creeping slowly through the years,
with the subtle growth of doubt and shame,
like a garden growing in the brain,
finely preserved in his suit and tie;
he thought it was preordained to die
before one had lived at all.
He called life another death
and so he put a gun to his head
wondering then what he would really do
and then he went right along as
he had always done.
The loss of life is so well refined
like all good things,
it frees the soul and destroys the mind.